Malik nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure how much help I can be, John.’
I took another sip from my drink. ‘I don’t know either, but I’m beginning to run out of options and, you never know, you might have something that’ll move us forward. Basically, I want as much information as you can give me on the Holtzes and Neil Vamen. I know a little bit, but it’s very patchy.’
‘Let’s order first,’ he said. He picked up a menu from the table and handed it to me. ‘I particularly recommend the saltimbocca.’
‘What the hell’s that?’
‘Escalopes of veal and parma ham cooked in a marsala sauce and served with veg of the day and sauteed potatoes. Bellissima!’
‘It sounds like you’re part-owner of the place.’ I gave the menu a cursory scan but nothing else leapt out at me. ‘OK, I’ll go with the escalopes. In honour of my ex-wife.’
‘She used to like them, did she?’
I allowed myself a malicious smile. ‘No, she was a strict vegetarian.’
‘Clearly not an amicable separation.’ He laughed.
‘Are they ever?’
‘Maybe more amicable than that. But who am I to judge?’ He waved the waiter over and gave our order. ‘Anyway,’ he said when the waiter had gone, ‘the Holtzes. I’ve been part of a team that’s been investigating them for getting close to eighteen months now, and let me tell you, they are no easy target. It’s like trying to penetrate concrete.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘A couple of reasons. One is they’ve been around as an organization of sorts for getting close to thirty years so they’re very well established. The old man Stefan’s the lynchpin. He started out as a nasty little thug and amateur boxer who got into debt collecting on behalf of various scumbags before deciding he’d be better off branching out on his own. What differentiated young Stefan from a thousand other lowlifes was that he had a brain, and a very sharp one at that. He was, and is, a very good businessman. I’d say he was wasted in crime but he probably earns ten times more through that than he would do by being legit, and he’s expanded majorly over the years. Moved into gambling, counterfeiting, armed robbery for a while, though of course never getting his hands dirty himself. He organized everything but he made sure he only surrounded himself with people he could really trust. That’s why in many ways it’s always been a family outfit. His two brothers were heavily involved with him in the early days, and then, when they got old enough, his sons got into it as well. They probably never would have been a massive outfit, though, if it hadn’t been for drugs.’
I allowed myself a wry chuckle. ‘Same old story.’
‘Always the same old story. Everyone’s made big cash out of drugs, no doubt about it, but for an outfit like the Holtzes, with an infrastructure and good underworld contacts already in place, the opportunities have been huge. And they’ve taken them. You know, the word is Stefan Holtz can’t stand drugs. Won’t let any of his family touch them, although of course they all do. But as an organization they were into them from the outset. Dope, amphetamines, coke particularly, even heroin. Over the years they’ve forged alliances with numerous other crime organizations both here and abroad and now they’re one of the biggest importers in Britain. They also supply a lot of the gear, particularly Ecstasy and coke, to Ibiza for the summer season. So, if your nice middle-class teenage kid goes over and drops a tab or snorts a line, the chances are that some of the profits on that are heading straight back to the Holtzes, and we’re not talking about small quantities here. Thousands of people are taking millions of pounds’ worth of gear every night between May and October. And that’s just one part of their smuggling activities.
‘But what sets them apart is their levels of sophistication and the seniority of their contacts in the criminal world. These days they get their cocaine straight out of Cali in Colombia, no middle men at all. And we believe they’ve set up a major smuggling route through Bosnia and into western Europe, not only for heroin from Pakistan and Afghanistan but also for illegal immigrants, particularly now the Mehmet Illan/Raymond Keen operation’s out of business. They even smuggle in ancient artefacts. There’s nothing they won’t touch. If it makes money, they’ll be there. And the sort of money that comes their way is incredible. We don’t know exactly how much it is for sure, there are so many front companies and money-laundering operations, and Holtz employs an army of accountants, but we reckon as a group they turn over in excess of forty million sterling per year.’
I whistled through my teeth. ‘No wonder they’re difficult to penetrate.’
‘Exactly. That sort of money buys a lot of loyalty. And, as I’ve said, they’re well enough established that the main players involved are all very well known to one another, so they’re not likely to start grassing each other up, especially if there’s no obvious benefit to it. A guy from SO10 did get on the periphery of the organization once but they sniffed him out, found out where he lived, and sent a couple of their people round to pay a visit to his wife and baby.’
‘Christ,’ I said, wondering how I’d have reacted ten years earlier if the same thing had happened to me.
‘They didn’t hurt them or anything, just made sure he knew that they could if they wanted to. It spooked the guy so badly he left the Force. And that was the closest anyone ever got. Having said all that, we have had some successes against them, as have other branches of the Met, and Tomas, Stefan’s oldest son, is currently doing a nine stretch for possession of two kilos of cocaine and twenty-four M-16 rifles.’ I raised my eyebrows quizzically. ‘Yes, they also smuggle weapons as well, although that was the first evidence we ever had of it, and of course young Tommy denied knowledge of any such enterprise and claimed that, like the gear, they were a plant.’ He smiled wearily, the standard copper’s reaction to such boring and uninventive lies.
‘What about contacts within the Force?’ I asked, thinking of that arsehole Burley. ‘Have they got any?’
‘We’ve never actually uncovered anyone, but you know as well as I do there are coppers out there susceptible to corruption.’ He paused for a moment as if he was waiting for me to make some mention of his old boss, but I kept silent. ‘Anecdotal evidence suggests there’s quite a few coppers on the Holtz payroll,’ he continued, ‘and it would stand to reason. But they’ve been good at keeping it under wraps.’
‘You said there were two reasons why they were so hard to penetrate. One’s the way they’re organized. What’s the other?’
Malik gave me a serious look. ‘Their ruthlessness. If you cross them, your days really are numbered. Every criminal firm’s prone to violence, of course. I suppose you’ve got to be in that line of business, especially these days with all the competition, but the Holtzes take it one step further. To them, killing’s just another way of protecting their investments. If you get in their way, or do anything that might foul up the smooth operation of their moneymaking, then you die. It’s as simple as that. We estimate they’ve been responsible for something like thirty-five killings since 1985 alone. Incredible when you think that most people have never even heard of them. But we’ve only ever recovered fourteen bodies which could actually be linked to members and associates of the family. Of those fourteen, not one has ever resulted in a conviction. People don’t go against the Holtzes because the consequences are simply too grim, and the rewards of staying onside simply too great.’